


it was never the end

by geode



Series: RIP the WIPs [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Character Study, Communication, Drabble Collection, Enjolras-centric, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Grantaire-centric, Halloween, Insomnia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Movie Night, Pre-Slash, Sickfic, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:02:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7989385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geode/pseuds/geode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Exr ficlet collection! {see series for more info}</p><p>01 breaking a three year silence - 02 r's insomnia - 03 wrong number - 04 enj angst: becoming apollo - 05 halloween! - 06 movie night - 07 enj angst: living as apollo - 08 r versus the sorting hat - 09 selfies fluff - 10 pacific rim au - 11 r angst - 12 sickfic - 13 enj angst: killing apollo</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i guess i still care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R can't let go of an old flame, old crush, old friend - what do you even _call_ Enjolras?
> 
> a/n this reads like a fix-it for a story i haven't written that ended badly. yw?

Grantaire doesn't know what came over him that Saturday night/ Sunday morning he gave in and decided to rouse the sleeping lions.

That's a lie, actually, he knows exactly: he couldn't sleep, and his mind was casting itself back into the past few years like a sadistic fishing net searching for things to make him feel like shite, and he'd accidentally stumbled on some photos on Facebook from a party he hadn't been invited to tonight, and the room was too stuffy and too cold at the same time, and he was sick of all the music on his iPod, and when he'd typed 'How to' into YouTube it had autofilled from his history with  
_... feel better_  
... _be happy_  
... _get over it_

So he'd thought _fuck it_ , and barely registered how weird it was that he still remembered the number - this and his mother's being the only two he'd ever bothered to actively memorise - and tapped the most neutral message he could think of in his frazzled state, and hit send before his mind changed against his will.

It felt a long time coming.

_Is this still Enjolras' number?_

People change their phones every couple of years so he didn't have much faith that anything would come of it, which was a relief as much as a punch to the gut because _reality, R, you're living in reality._

He'd thrown his phone onto the carpet anyway, and opted to bury himself in his duvet like the five inch computer was capable of growing arms and physically attacking him. The clock ticked obnoxiously from the wall; he lasted about ten seconds before cursing and getting up, unhooking it and forcefully removing the batteries. His inner monologue continued to berate him, quite possibly louder now to fill the silence.

He paced, which basically involved spinning in his tiny bedroom. He opened the skylight windows and felt the cold invade, glad for the clarity even if it hurt.

His phone pinged.

Well. That's a turn up for the books.

_I was going to say something sarcastic but then I remembered you're the only person in the known universe to know two Enjolras's. So yes. Hi._

And just like that, it was 2012 again and Grantaire was smiling stupidly, heart in his mouth, looking at the _Add contact?_ suggestion with something embarrassingly close to ecstasy.

 

Three months later, he's despairing over his hair in the bathroom mirror and wondering if he looks that much different. Is he fatter? The facial hair's come along nicely, at least - finally past the patchy bullshit phase. If he plays it right he can come off as an absent-minded artist, he reckons, but if he doesn't he'll just look like a slob. Or a git.

His phone told him he had ten minutes before he had to leave, which in itself is incredible because he's late to literally everything. He was late to his own birthday party once.

The hair, he decided, would have to do, and he wrapped two scarves around his neck in a misguided attempt at fashion and stuck his feet in his shoes. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was, technically, his first date, even though, technically it wasn't even a date. It was pretty much the opposite of a date. Oh fuck, this was a bad idea.

"Too late, _arschgeigen_ ," he muttered miserably to himself as he slammed the door shut behind him and heard the lock. And he couldn't stand up his not-date anyway.

The whole journey to Aberford Grantaire's body is thrumming with nerves, and he can't stop bursting into random grins and scaring the old people on the bus. It's cold, which he counts as a small mercy because he's less likely to be visibly sweating when he's seen Enjolras for the first time in months and months and months. S'not what he's going for, really.

He's planning the spontaneous one-liners and answers to the obvious questions and what he's going to order at the Costa they're meeting at, and he might even be going mad - but then through the rain-splattered, slightly misted window, he sees him.

Grantaire swallows. He wishes he didn't look the same as he remembered. He wishes he didn't look so... good.

Enjolras doesn't see him staring. And that's just how it goes, isn't it?

 

"Nice glasses," he says, or rather blurts uncontrollably because the momentary silence was doing things to his brain; and damn, are they nice glasses.

"Thanks," Enjolras replies slightly suspiciously.

"No! I mean it, they're. They look good." Hole: dug. "Very you." Stop.

"And what's 'me', may I ask?"

"Uh, you know," Grantaire can feel his face heating up and the entire English language leaving his head. He looks up to the Heavens for divine intervention, or at the very least four seconds without having to look Enjolras in the eye. "Like, can take you to a parents' evening but also a protest against standardised testing."

When he looks down again, Enjolras is smiling - no, grinning - and fiddling with the handle of his mug. "That's what you think of me, huh?"

"Don't deny it, man."

He shrugs, like he knows he can't.

Grantaire grins back. He feels- well. He feels everything.


	2. 4am, beside myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire can't sleep.

After two and a half hours of lying miserably in the dark to no avail, Grantaire gives up and pads into the kitchen in his one toeless sock. He thinks half-assedly about making tea or something, but the kettle would be too loud in the silent apartment, and if anything it would keep him up longer, and anyway he doesn't even really want tea. Juice? There's an inch of pineapple concentrate in the fridge door, if he recalls correctly. He pours it into a glass sloppily and stares at it with waning enthusiasm. His blinking is slow but his eyes burn when they stay shut for more than a few seconds, and his brain continues to itch either way.

The glass ends up on the coffee table in the living room, untouched, as Grantaire sits with the desk-lamp on flicking through the weekend's newspaper. (No one reads the news on paper these days: he has no idea who would've bought this.) A celebrity did this, a politician didn't do that, the world is ending but the weather will be nice on Thursday. It's boring enough to knock a small to medium-sized dog out, but does nothing to him. He's beyond saving. He'll end up like the Russian Sleep Experiment guys; in fact he's fairly sure he's halfway there.

A scuffle from behind startles him into knocking the table with his knee, hissing like a pissed-off cat, which: well.

"R?" a soft voice follows, and Grantaire only has time to think _hang on_ , before Enjolras is stepping around the sofa and sitting down rather heavily in the blue armchair he always sits in. He's wearing a thin white T-shirt and tartan slacks, and he has bed-hair, and it's the first time in weeks he's said something to Grantaire in a remotely civil decibel.

It's the first time ever he's called him R.

They both seem to realise that at the same moment; Enjolras shakes his head as if to kinetically scrub that mistake from the immediate past. He must be going mad too, to forget something like that.

"Evening," Grantaire mumbles in response, a beat too late to not be weird but a couple of hours too late for him to retain enough fucks to fixate on it. "Can't sleep?" he asks uselessly, conversationally. Enjolras doesn't reply, just pulls his feet up under him and wraps his arms around his knees. He looks very young, Grantaire thinks.

Silence fills the room up again like a relentless bubble, pressing against Grantaire's skin. He wants to take this opportunity, use the eerie otherworldliness of the hour to get something from Enjolras like another _R_ , a polite smile, something - but he just can't; he's a dead man walking. Well, sitting. He can't sleep, and he can't stay awake, not really, not enough to do anything with. So instead he just watches him, and wonders how it is that the one thing they have in common is _this_.

Enjolras shifts in the chair, their eyes meeting for a fraction too long before one of them remembers to blink (not meaningfully - stupidly), and then he asks, "You drinking that?"

Grantaire feels he should lay claim on the glass - after all, it's his excuse for being out and about if anyone were to ask - but whatever. Enjolras seems too tired to care either.

He remembers suddenly that he hates pineapple juice. He makes a _Go ahead_ gesture.

Enjolras hesitates until it becomes clear Grantaire has no intention of passing it to him like a normal person, and then heaves himself from the armchair (and that might be the weirdest thing about this, the fact that he seems to have lost his usual grace, the lightness of his movements).

Before he knows what's happening Enjolras is sat next to him, sinking into the sofa cushions more than he expected if the hilarious helpless look in his eyes is anything to go by. The glass is now too far away to pick up, and he doesn't try.

They sit there watching the blank TV in a pleasant, unpleasant silence.

Grantaire wants to ask why, wants to make a joke, wants to apologise for some reason.

"Can you turn that down?" Enjolras says of the desk-lamp, squinting at it vaguely accusingly: Grantaire flicks the switch to lowlight absently. "Thanks."

They sit in the dark and don’t talk, and it’s the most pleasant conversation they’ve ever had. When the world is reduced like so, to the warmth of someone’s side against yours and the streetlight outside making patterns on your feet and the hum of the dryer, Grantaire can almost deal with it, can forget for a while that he has work in three hours and the person next to him hates him and is just too out of himself to remember. It feels like stealing, but if Grantaire is anything he is selfish, so he curls further into Enjolras’ side and steals and steals and steals. That’s the trouble with finding a cure for insomnia – sometimes it feels so good you don’t want to sleep when you're finally able to.


	3. textual tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They even manage to meet even though they've never met. (Enjolras is in italics)

HAY GURL tis i, im using Fs phone bc mine was FUCKING EATEN BY A FUCKING SEAGULL ?? pls press 1 for more details

_1_

_I should probably point out that this isn't whoever you were supposed to text but I absolutely want more details._

hu hwhat

this is ép right

_Nope, wrong number._

duuuuuude no fukc

_Sorry._

nah im sorry man i must have FAT FINGERS

_Sounds like you're just drunk, I'm sure your fingers are fine._

thats the nicest but weirdest thing anyones ever sed to me omg

but yes correct i am drunk as a spunk

*spunk

*sK UNK

_Did a seagull really eat your phone?_

yes!! I am outraged

theres not muchh else to the story tho srry :(

i mean it shat on me right after so like, kick a man while hes dow n

_This puts a whole new spin to animal cruelty. What did you do to aggravate it?_

oh u just ASSUME i did smth??????

_Well they aren't known to be especially malicious creatures._

yes they r

_Maybe around you. Maybe you in fact aggravate every single seagull you come across. I never have any trouble._

wtvr

it was a horrid beast and the fact that i was throwin bread rolls at it is irrelevant

shoukdnt it have been grateful anyway? no one feeds those fuckers and yet here i was, offering it preciouis bread..

_Yes, it doesn't make sense that it would retaliate during an ambush... Hmm, curious..._

shut the fcuk up

u dont know my life

_That's true, I don't. That's kind of how we got here._

yes I should probabbly find éps real # bc shes my RIDE and I am stranded without her :'''(

_Okay, nice talking to you._

FOUND IT I AM SAVED SHES ON HER SWEET WAY

wait thtats not a phrase

what

_Oh good! I hope you're not waiting somewhere dodgy._

dodgy is such a gr8 word

_I can't believe you just said gr8._

i am at the beach

_How... lovely._

its fuckin freezing and my friends abandoned me to go shag behind the beach huts

_Oh wow._

_Wait, they left you alone at one a.m. after your phone got destroyed?_

they're not as twattish as they sound although actually yes they are

theyre just sex freaks

_At least someone left you theirs? F?_

oh feuilly yeah,, he was gonna stay but his gf came to pick him up so he valiantly left me with some form of contact 2 the outside world

_That's very trusting of him._

he has no porn or incriminating info ive checked :(

I think he g ot the end of gull v nexus on camera actuallt lets have a look~~~

_Immediate abuse of that trust!_

yu p there it is

hey im a great friend! for instance i do not abandon ppl in order to bang other ppl

_Ah, but the determining question is whether you WOULD do that if the opportunity arose?_

not behind a beach hut

_I calculate that makes you 55% a good friend._

is htat a pass???

_Depends on the exam board, which in this case is whichever friend you would be hypothetically abandoning._

probably ép then

she wouldnt mind, she'd probably give me shit if I DIDNT grasp the opportunity by the balls

_Bad word choice for the situation, but okay. I guess you pass then...?_

:D :D

whats your name

_What's yours?_

esmerelda

_As in the fortune teller?_

ofc

do i not seem liek an esmerelda???????? v judgemental of u, whoever u are

_That was actually, sorry. Is your name Esmerelda then?_

oh my god Im fucking w/ you man

unfortunately for yu i am not a sexy romani princess

_Why's that unfortunate?_

bc

bc who wouldn't wanna be talkin to a sexy princess

_Me._

_That sounds rude, I just mean I don't wish you were one or anything._

your e so good to me kiddo :*

_Kiddo? How can you be sure you're older than me?_

dont question affection!!!

_Alright, alright. How old ARE you though? I assume you'll actually answer that at least._

17

_Beat you. I'm 20 in two weeks._

aare you at uni?

_Yeah. It'd be your last year of sixth form, right?_

right

theres fuck all to do here i cant wait to get out of this teeny tiny toy town

_I know the feeling. Only a few months now, you're on the home stretch._

éps here AT FUCKING LAST :D :D

_Well done for not being murdered!_

thnx babe

_Babe._

yes babe

srsly tho thnx youve been good company

_Unlike your sex freak friends._

i''ll tell them uu said that

_You're welcome._

-

you didn't ask but i know you were gaggin for it

_Oh my God, what???? I'm not gagging for anything, whatever it is you're implying!_

omf nooo man lmao i mean the vid, i guess it's still loading

[video.message] sent/_recieved/

there

_Oh. Sorry._

lol you really got flustered there huh

_I woke up to an accusation that I'm gagging for it, what do you expect?_

_Excellent video. My favourite part is the soundtrack._

yes, i think the word is "cackling"

they rly are awful friends

notice how NOT ONE of them came to my aid!

ugh

anyways yes i thought i owed you the visual side of the story

_Well, thank you very much._

_Can I go back to sleep now? As much as I enjoyed that, it's still the middle of the fucking night._

_Sorry, I'm a grumpy old man in the morning._

hahahha

sure no go ahead, sweet dreams my pretty

_Shhh_

xoxo

-

i uh don't know how to go about this but basically i have to give feuilly his phone back so um ?

you're still asleep probably

gdi

-

_Oh. Well, thanks for the video anyway._

He says yw.

_Oh, sorry, you must be the mythic "F". Tell your friend I said bye or something? They're right, it is weird just leaving it._

He says baked beans and Nutella.

_Huh?_

"Or something." I asked him what he liked on toast.

_Worst combination ever. Tell him mine's peanut butter and Marmite._

Tell him yourself, I'm not an OWL!!!!!

[contact.message] sent/_received/

-

thats super gross yk

_At least mine are both savoury._

UR both savoury

_Yes. Well done on that._

im still very sleepy still pls don’t attack my sparkling wit

_Aw, okay._

_Actually no, not okay, it’s 1pm and you’re still sleepy?_

i do not fully awaken until 6pm

_Figures._

;DDDDDDD

_Why do you have so many mouths?_

im v talkative

_I noticed, actually._

_;;;;;;;;;)_

why do u have so many eyes

_Glasses._

OMF YOU WEAR GLASSES

_WHY IS THIS EXCITING NEWS_

GLASSES ARE ADORABLE

youre adorable <3

_Glasses fever_

no its a fact that everyone is 10x cuter in a good pair of glasses

so even if youre actually rly ugly youd be adorable in glasses

_Thanks, I think…_

bitte schon bae

_We’re at bae-level already?_

love works fast


	4. what's past is prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me something no one knows about you.

He clearly doesn't believe you; there's a sparkle in his eye that's practically a challenge, a _fuck you you're perfect, dare to be anything else_. Just like all his accusations, you can't resist the meticulously constructed bait.

"I wasn't always like this," you say, and the strangeness of the words in your mouth remind you that you've never admitted this to anyone before. That was kind of the point.

The café continues to hum around you. People still laugh and drink and don't give a damn. It's fucking inspiring.

"Mm?" he prompts, fingering the napkin under his mug, probably itching to draw on it. He obviously still thinks you're bullshitting him.

"I think I always wanted to... change the world, I think everyone does in a vague notion, but all throughout high school I did nothing about it. I wasn't engaged - at all. I was the quiet kid everyone knew but no one was really close to; I'd do my homework, stay off the radar, that sort of thing. There was a debate club, and I... I didn't go. I knew it existed and I just didn't want to go. I wasn't that bothered. I didn't think it would amount to anything."

He opens his mouth to say something, eyes bugging at your strange mirroring of something he'd said a few days earlier, but you wave at him to shut up in order to finish.

"I had this uncle who was a member of Greenpeace and Amnesty and everything like that under the sun. I remember my mum ranting a lot about all the dangerous things he did, all the injuries at protests and stuff. Everyone seemed to think he was selfish. He had kids, you know, and a wife, and he used to up and leave them and they'd never know if he'd come back. So I never really paid him much thought. I didn't want people to think that of me, so I didn't give him any...respect."

You look over at him to check he hasn't zoned out, in which case you could stop right now, not tell him the rest of this past you've made a point never to tell anyone. He blinks at you with an indiscernible expression, hands still.

"One day I got home from school and mum was just sitting there at the kitchen table, staring off into space, looking for all the world like she was some kind of AI that had been switched off. It was fucking frightening. I asked her what was up, and it turns out... it turns out he'd finally done it. He'd finally got himself killed. He'd taken a bullet for some kid at a riot in London, died at the scene. I was a little confused at first, 'cause I thought she didn't like him, so I couldn't understand why it shook her up so much.

And then. Then at the funeral, _so_ many people came. The girl's entire family flew over from England. Several families from over the years. Someone he worked with read out a list of all the things he'd done, all the causes he'd helped. And my mum, throughout the whole thing, and it was a damn long list, sat there with a, like, fierce pride in her stature. Like she'd never called him an idiot on the phone for missing Aunt Jan's birthday because he was in Iceland.

At the wake their other brother came up to me and, and, and said Patrick had always liked me. Because he'd seen himself in me. And I just- I fucking- I felt so _pointless_ right then, because this guy had given up being a nice person in order to be a good one, and I'd spent my whole life trying to be nice and inoffensive and inconsequential.

So I swore to myself, and to him, that I'd... " you trail off. That you'd what?

"Continue his legacy," he offers, smiling.

You make a face at him. "Something like that."

He downs the dregs of his hot chocolate. "You do realise that's practically a superhero origin story, right? At the very least it confirms you're the protagonist."

You can’t help smiling. “Well that’s reassuring.”

“It should be. Not many people get to be the protagonist. Sorry, am I trivialising it?”

“No, you’re right actually. That was my plan, really; to become the do-er.”

“Don’t worry, you do more than do,” he says, quippy as hell. You roll your eyes at him and don’t tell him he said exactly the right things.


	5. damn it, janet!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Are you having an existential crisis over R wearing a corset? Is this really what's happening here?"
> 
> a/n this has been plaguing me ever since halloween when i saw rocky horror for the first time also: writing enj wrecks my brain - my solution? make him tipsy

Halloween is great. It's fun. It's creative, non-religious and full of candy. Halloween is Enjolras' favourite holiday.

Usually.

"Was this your doing," he asks Joly dully, eyes not straying from the doorway.

Bossuet leans over and replies, "Yep." Enjolras can feel Joly grin at his side, and then they take this fucking ridiculous synchronised sip of their beers, and Enjolras has to look over at them to ensure they know his opinion of their existences. Existence?

"What do you think?" Joly purrs.

"Uh, I think Eponine could have tried harder," he sidesteps, and Bossuet rolls his eyes and leans back against the wall.

Joly just gives him a little pat on the arm, the message of which Enjolras cannot decipher. "C'mon, _cher_ , let's find the Pringles," Joly grabs Bousset and steers them away from Enjolras, muttering, _"Boring."_

 

Ten minutes later, because he seems to have some sort of gage for when Enjolras is on edge (well, he's the reason for it 102% of the time), Grantaire homes in on him with a terrible smile on his face.

"Sup, Angel," he says, and wow: Enjolras' night just keeps getting worse.

"Nice..." he attempts to reply, but trails off, which has the unfortunate effect of making Grantaire grin wider.

"You're welcome," he answers, shimmying, and then just looks at him.

"I'm getting a drink," Enjolras announces at an inappropriate volume. He is fully aware he sounds like a robot, okay, or at the very least a complete knob, but his capacity to remember his first language has left him so he's stuck with this, his sort of weird default.

He flees the scene and tries not to dwell on Grantaire's face falling, because the drinks are somewhere he can't follow, and he knows that Grantaire knows that he knows that.

 

"You could've tried harder," he tells Eponine half-heartedly a while later. She snorts and he sips from his plastic cup mournfully while they watch the party; he doesn't consider himself shy in the least, but he seems to gravitate to the walls at parties; luckily (or maybe not), Ep has the same predilection.

"So could you, fuckhead," she knocks her bony shoulder into him. "I mean, seriously? Did you even have to buy any part of your costume?"

"I was being resourceful!"

"You were _being_ unimaginative."

They go back to pouty silence. Across the room, Grantaire and Jehan are jitterbugging and hogging most of the spotlight. They're both exceptionally good at dancing in heels, something Enjolras already knew but still found rather awe-inspiring.

"He ate the toast, y'know," Eponine mumbles into the neck of her beer, and swings her whole body around to face him, because apparently this is important information to impart.

"The what?"

"The throwing toast," she clarifies.

_Oh._

"He. He ate the toast." Enjolras repeats. Eponine makes a strange face at him, and he realises that he's smiling and can't stop. "Oh my God," he says. _"Ep."_

Her strange face morphs into something more endeared at his plea for help. (Rather than actually offering any help, he'd like to point out.) She chugs the rest of her drink and pushes away from the wall.

"You egg," she chides him, Shakespearian as ever, and off she goes, leaving him alone with his face.

Now would probably be a good time for an existential crisis in the downstairs bathroom.

 

Apparently everyone's taking turns to come and witness the freak show of his life, because Courf shows up ten minutes after he locks himself in the tiny room, and he has no clue how the guy gets past the bolt, but he does.

He makes a beeline for the sink and whips out his eyeliner, barely acknowledging Enjolras until he says, "This is the lesser version of those pricks who throw themselves on trainlines." Which, alright.

"Mm?" Enjolras replies with as much inflection as he can muster in his depressed state (spoiler - not very much).

"Hiding in bathrooms."

There isn't much to say to that without outright confirming or denying, so Enjolras just doesn't answer. He tries to form an opinion on the hand towel opposite him instead.

"My guy, I want you to be happy," Courf says; they make eye contact in the mirror. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

"Do... do what?"

"Not let yourself have things."

_Okay, so we're doing this._

He'd been enjoying the no-man's-land period of nobody acknowledging his maybe-thing for Grantaire, and he'd almost convinced himself that no one really knew, but alas, that time appeared to be over.

Why now? Why in this lemon-scented bathroom with dolphin tiles?

Oh right, because's he's being a freak.

"It's not that," Enjolras starts, but Courf wheels around to presumably throw something at him, so he rushes on: "No, no, I mean it is about that, but it's not... not letting myself have things."

"Extrapolate."

"You're really gonna make me say it?"

"Yep."

"Well, I mean - he obviously doesn't fucking like me! Look, I get that we all by default root for everyone in their... pursue of love, but it's not that easy, not for me. My whole personality is based around being angry, which doesn't bode well for romance. And you've seen us interact - it's just yelling."

" _You're_ obviously getting something out of it."

"Yeah, because when he's not yelling at me he's a normal human being! He, like, goes to the cinema, and plays the guitar. He can turn it off. I'm like this _all the time_."

Courfeyrac slides down the wall to sit next to him, mirroring his angsty knees-up position. He places a gentle hand on Enjolras' forearm. "Are you... are you having an existential crisis over R wearing a corset? Is this really what's happening here?"

Enjolras considers it, and admits to himself that he's probably been drinking more than he thinks, and nods sadly. Cat's out of the bag.

Courf sighs and rests his head on his shoulder. "So I have to convince you - _you_ \- that you're in fact a good person? _You_."

"You don't _have_ to," Enjolras mumbles.

"Christ on a unicycle, are you normally this melancholy at holiday parties?"

Enjolras takes that to be rhetorical and just crosses his arms so he can lean on them; this dislodges Courf, who huffs and resettles against the adjacent wall. There's a knock on the door, which he rebuffs with a simple, _"No."_

Then, "Okay, so I watched The Imitation Game on Thursday - I know right, excellent movie - and remember that bit where Benedict Cumberbatch is having a breakdown in his dressing gown?"

"Shit. Is that me?"

"Yep. I'm Joan. You want me to do the speech?" Without waiting for a reply, he grabs Enjolras' shoulders and leans in with crazy eyes. "If you wish you could've been normal, I can assure you I do not."

Enjolras scrunches his face up and holds out a finger to stop him for a quick sec. "I'm confused by two parts of this. One: I am no Alan Turing? Obviously? And two: everyone hated him? Is this meant to make me feel better?"

Courf shakes him and Enjolras makes a mental note to never let anyone grab him by his shoulders again. "You're really adamant about this, aren't you?" He sighs again. He must have an infinite supply of breath to deal with him, Enjolras muses. "Look, you're _not_ normal, not in the sense you're thinking of. You're kind of ethereal, babe. Please don't compare yourself to other people - people like you haven't existed since Ancient Greece."

"I... don't know what that means. It's really cheesy though."

"I have a bachelor's degree in cheese, friend. I mean, like, you're a warrior - archaic and what not. It's like you should be somewhere more important than here. You're a new type of person who don't need no social convention."

Enjolras returns his gaze to the hand towel, but this time out of awkwardness. Is that what people thought of him? He's never asked, never stopped to think about it; whenever he thinks about the world's perception of him he feels dizzy, and he hides behind the idea that it's not important.

But it brings up a good point, this analogy of purpose, because it's true. He'd made peace years ago with the idea that he isn't like other people, never has been - it's just never been more apparent than it is when faced with... this. It was gonna be tough, but it was probably always gonna be a part of it, a part of him: so grin and bear. And he _doesn't_ hate himself, how could he hate himself when he helps so many people? He does his humanitarian duty, and at least according to Kant that's enough to make him Good, even if it's holistic. Maybe it's _better_ this way. He gets shit done. He doesn't need to have hobbies and outside interests just to make his fucking Facebook timeline more appealing to his acquaintances. That was essentially peer pressure, and Enjolras liked to consider himself someone who didn't succumb to that, so he'd best start acting like one.

Courf graciously lets him internally monologue for the time it takes to relace his shoes, which unfortunately means he interrupts Enjolras' conclusion and he's just left with a faint 'wait, what' floating in his brain. "It doesn't matter if he likes you, Enj. He'll be nice enough about it. One rejection doesn't invalidate you or whatever you think'll happen. We'll just watch Clueless and the sun will rise again in your dark soul."

Enjolras makes an attractive nose noise and thinks about calling him out on trivialising his feelings, but then remembers this was the reason behind them anyway.

Damn, he's pretty shallow.

"K," he says. He briefly mourns his lost conclusion, which could've been the answer to the meaning or life, c'mon, but decides it's good enough that he feels better now, even if he can't remember what he was getting at exactly.

Courfeyrac narrows his eyes, but he's smiling. "Is that all I get? 'K'? I likened you to a _statue_."

Enjolras grins. "Only indirectly."

"You don't deserve me."

"Ah, I know."

 

They emerge from the bathroom to find Marius, red in the face and jiggling his leg frantically. "Sorry, brah," Courf says, not particularly sorry, and thumps him on the back hard enough for him to fall through the doorway.

"Why must you treat me this way?" Marius' voice pouts (somehow), even as he shuts the door in their faces and bolts it in his haste to utilise the _one bathroom in the entire house_. Oops.

"You're the youngest," Enjolras calls back reasonably, and Courf is still laughing when they emerge into the living room again.

"So what have you learnt, Az?" he asks, scanning the room for the most enticing opportunity.

"Wait, I'm meant to have learnt something?"

"Yeah..." Courf swivels and Enjolras turns his shoulders away in a newly-developed instinct. "You're meant to go confess your _amour_ now, fucklessly."

"Fucklessly?" Enjolras says weakly.

Courf grins. "Yes! I just thought of that, I think I might try and circulate it. I was thinking 'No fucks attached' but that could be misinformation-"

Enjolras' brain catches up with the conversation. "Hang on, _no_ , no no no, I'm not gonna go talk to to him, with or without fucks, are you crazy?"

Courf shrugs. "There is some dispute," and then fucking shoves him forward and straight into the man himself.

"Hello," Grantaire says as he catches his elbow.

"Good evening," Enjolras answers, and is disgusted with himself. He steps back and brushes imaginary detritus from his sweater. "Uh."

"Bzz, hesitation. Point to me."

And oh Lord God Almighty, Enjolras bursts out laughing; he's so gone for this guy, this Radio 4 quoting nerd wearing fake eyelashes and holding a can of Apple Tango.

The nerd in question is watching him, looking slightly alarmed but pleased too, and Enjolras wonders off-hand if this is, so far, the friendliest conversation they've ever had. _Let's see how long the streak lasts._

He swallows. "I like.... your.... it's... you look good in... stockings."

Grantaire blinks back at him. "Are you having an aneurysm?"

Enjolras hopes not, but wouldn't put money on it.

Inwardly, he screams. Outwardly, he shrugs.

"Right, well. Thank you. It's, ah, a nifty trick there - everyone looks good in stockings."

Aaaand plateau.

Enjolras is kind of at a loss of what to do, and is just about to scram and hide behind Bahorel until his timely death when Grantaire's eyes flick around the room and he leans in. "By the way, do you know why everyone's staring at us?"

Enjolras lasts about three and a half seconds before bursting out laughing again. This is the least fuckless he has felt in his entire life. His friends are so unsubtle. Had a memo gone around in the last fifteen seconds?

He leans in too and whispers back, "No one's ever seen us talk and not heard it," because it's true, really.

"Man, are we really that bad?"

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. "Are you serious? You threw a shoe at me the other day."

He had, in fact, for the record, raised his hand to ask a question at the meeting, and then said nothing whilst unlacing a single Van and proceeding to lob it at the podium.

"Ah, that's just political fervour."

"The rest of us get by fine without throwing shoes."

"Don't worry, I won't stab you with one of these fuckers," Grantaire assures, clicking a stiletto point to the floor.

And it really says something about Enjolras that his heart flutters at the extremely romantic declaration that he will not be stabbed.

"Good," he says, and Grantaire smiles, and he smiles back, and across the room Eponine makes a crude fistpump in his direction. Unfortunately, he is too busy planning her murder to notice that Grantaire had actually seen this exchange go down.

Enjolras is making a Rage Face at her when he hears R choke on his Tango; he looks over to witness this disaster of a man he's decided to become infatuated with; and sees him doing a very similar face in a very similar direction.

"What," Enjolras says.

Grantaire jumps and looks back at him, face reddening. "What?"


	6. taking it evermore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They watch a movie.
> 
> a/n aka I watched network last semester and this was my first thought

So, it isn't a big deal. It's not. The whole thing will blow up in Grantaire's face if it becomes a big deal, so he's goddamn determined to keep it chill and not let slip the fact that it's the best turn of events he could have anticipated. (Which he absolutely didn't.)

Because, somehow, they have this thing now where they watch movies together.

They are exclusively movies from decades ago that neither of them have heard of, that Grantaire dredges up from the ether after the most rudimentary IMDB check possible. It's fifty-fifty on which ones are terrible and which ones are hidden gems, which indicates a level of good judgement that Grantaire is proud to have perfected.

It happens in the evenings, usually around nine-ish on unexciting weeknights. Grantaire will find a movie, message Enjolras, and go make himself some cereal. When he comes back, his laptop will be blinking at him, showing the flashing 'Invite Accepted' pop-up that he's come to feel worryingly Pavlovian towards.

Maybe it really isn't a big deal at all; it's not like they're actually in the same room when it happens. There's this website that connects Netflix accounts so you can stream stuff at the same time and live-tweet it through the messaging part. It changes the game entirely. Where was this shit when Grantaire was thirteen and his best friends lived in America, Sweden and Thailand?

Tonight, it's Network.

Grantaire has doubts at first, because it looks dated and he knows fuck all about the journalism industry, but three minutes in Enjolras sends a row of exclamation marks ending in a one and he doesn't even really register it. It's amazing. It's fucking hilarious - Grantaire spills milk on his duvet when he laughs too hard - and it's smart, too, and beautifully shot, and-

Enjolras calls him at the window scene. Grantaire nearly drops his phone in his haste to pick up: they don't do this, this is too close to acknowledging the whole not-thing they have.

He doesn't say hi, and neither does Enjolras. They just listen to the yelling coming from both ends of the line. And then,

"I'm mad as hell," he says, and Grantaire can hear his words stretching around his smile. "And I'm not gonna take it anymore."

Grantaire waits a beat before replying, "I'm mad as hell. I'm not gonna take it anymore."

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore."

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

Their words add to the rising cacophony on-screen, lost in it really, and that's probably why Enjolras laughs, because he supposed he can't be heard. Grantaire hears, though, and he wonders if they're ever gonna talk about it.


	7. that word I can't remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras is lying.
> 
> a/n I'm sad, so I finished this sad whatever it is. #projecting

Enjolras is lying. He is always, always lying.

It started with Combeferre, but really it probably started way before then. The Red Table; Gifted Reading Group; 5.0.

He doesn't find it easy, you see. His first envelope, all the other kids buzzing around the classroom, and he sees the 'A' through the thin paper, and Tommy J peers over his shoulder when he starts smiling. "Obviously," he scoffs, and shoves him into the table corner as he skips off to more interesting and mediocre matters. Combeferre, when he happens, says, "You're amazing," but it's the same sentiment. _Obviously._ Like he hadn't even tried.

And Enjolras didn't have anything else yet, so he went with it.

By the time he's fourteen, he realises no one could ever know.

When he's twenty one, Grantaire slurs into his neck that he was made to do this, made to consume and fight and build, and it fucking hurts in his head for a second because he realises this life he's created for himself was entirely founded on a false premise.

He can't tell anyone. He can't tell anyone.

Joly cheers his lungs out at Enjolras' graduation from law school, but he cries at Bossuet's because Boss had tried _so_ hard and he'd seen him studying every night for four months. Enjolras swallows it down and lets him cry on his shoulder. Grantaire grins up at him on the stage and it's the only thing that doesn't feel like it isn't enough, because Grantaire always grins at him like that.

It's not that Joly isn't proud of him. He knows it's not. It's just that, very reasonably, he puts effort above talent any day, and he once told Enjolras he's the most talented person he knows.

He fucking hates that word. He smiles back anyway.

He'd spent his entire high school career in his bedroom, at his kitchen table, sitting in the back of the library at lunchtimes. He didn't have time for extra curriculars, so everyone just assumed he had a one track mind. His English class went to a production of The Tempest that the Drama department put on, and he watched the kids from chem and history dance around and almost break face from laughing and he had to go to the bathroom so he didn't burst into tears in front of everyone during a fucking comedy.

It's pathetic, but that's his life.

He's twenty six and a journalist calls him a wonder. He's twenty eight and Bahorel goes straight to helping Feuilly when the cops turn on them in Berlin, because, as he says later, "you can take care of yourself."

He could ask for someone to take care of him. He could, but who is he without this. He can't be a fearless leader without being fearless.

He's thirty, and tells him congratulations when Grantaire gets engaged. He realises there's a catch, which is that with him being Apollo, Grantaire will never accept that he could love him. But he has to be Apollo. What else has he got?


	8. divergent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n the only hogwarts house hc i will accept for r

"Hmm," the sorting hat said, wriggling a bit, which R found he was highly disturbed by; what was the anatomy of a hat? It was like having a sentient creature sitting on his head, so like... which parts... were where? "A difficult one," it continued unabashed. "Verrrrry tricky. Hmm."

R rolled his eyes despite the literal terror he had been experiencing since he sat down on the stool. His mind cast back to Harry Potter, whose whispered _"Not Slytherin, not Slytherin!"_ had gone down in Wizarding history for being a determinative point or whatever. R didn't want anything to be determined. He certainly didn't want it to happen right this second, under the gaze of a few hundred teenagers in stupid clothes. He _wanted_ to go home and play Nintendogs.

He kept his mind carefully blank.

"Hmm," the sorting hat said again, this time less amused. It squeezed its rim ( _oh my god_ ) around R' skull impatiently.

He thought of nothing, and more nothing, and squeezed his eyes shut to better his efforts at thinking of nothing. His knuckles started to hurt from where he'd been clutching the sides of the stool.

 _"Make a decision,"_ the hat hissed in his ear.

 _"No,"_ he hissed back.


	9. evidence of a good time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say fromage!
> 
> a/n this exists bc the idea of enjo trying to take a selfie haunts me

"Do we _have_ to do this?" Enjolras huffs, and the pout is back. Grantaire meets his eyes through the screen and raises an eyebrow.

"This was your idea, I'll have you recall."

The pout turns into a glare, and after five seconds of not being able to rebuff that Enj sticks his tongue out. R grins and knocks their shoulders together. He breaks their digital eye contact to turn to him properly, bite his lip. 

“C’mon, man,” he says softly, before seeming to catch himself and slam down the humour defence barrier. “Do it for the wall.”

“I’m not doing anything to add to that monstrosity you call a feature wall.”

Grantaire stretches his sigh to last almost ten seconds, by which point Enj goes to whack the phone out of his hand. R blocks the hit expertly and loosens his grip so his fingers just encircle Enj’s wrist.

“Three things,” he says. “One, it _is_ a feature wall, by definition. My wall is art, also by definition: just because it’s a bit… hectic, doesn’t mean it’s not great to wake up to in the morning. Two, your face would if anything be detracting from the hypothetical monstrousness—“

“Oh, shut _up_.”

“It is, astonishingly, true.” Enjolras’ ears are red, and Grantaire fights himself on just taking his hand — it’s such a ridiculously pure moment. “And three, old sport, I wasn’t actually talking about _my_ wall.”

This makes Enj look up again. “Huh?” he says, Debate Finalist 2017 at his finest.

Grantaire drops his wrist finally to scratch the nape of his neck awkwardly. “Yeah, like. Not to be an evangelical feature wall-ist but. I thought you could start one, maybe? If you wanted? Of like your articles and certificates and uh, photos from our pub crawls?”

Enj stares at him.

“I really haven’t put as much thought into this as I’m making out,” R babbles on. “I’m just thinking out loud. I haven’t been—you know, it just saddens me to see a blank wall yada yada—”

“Grantaire—”

“Not saying I have to be anywhere on it or anything, this doesn’t even have to go—I just, dunno—”

“R, jeez, shut up,” Enjolras laughs, properly, his few and far between almost _giggles_.

“Sorry,” Grantaire says, feelings his own ears heat up.

“It’s… a pretty good idea,” Enj admits. “Would be nice to wake up to.”

They look at each other for a moment, before Enj coughs and Grantaire glances over to the standing lamp for a reason he can’t come up with so he’s hoping Enjolras doesn’t ask.

“So yeah, if I’m gonna, gotta make a start,” Enj shrugs. It takes R a second, but he gets there.

A grin blooms on his face and he raises his phone again, tapping the passcode in because it had fallen asleep during their little… whatever. On a whim, he throws his arm around Enj’s shoulder as he goes to take the photo.

They look at it afterwards in his phone’s gallery and neither of them says anything, let alone mentions the way Enjolras seems to be leaning back into him, or the gentle way Grantaire’s thumb rests on his far arm.

(Enjolras takes his advice and starts blue-tacking bits and pieces above his desk. Their photo is the first thing, and for about a week of rather uncharacteristic procrastination, the only thing.)

 


	10. personating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire accidentally pioneers a revolution in drift tech. This is how it starts
> 
> a/n this is for u kate uwu bc i cant think of anyone else who would be interested in this concept lol

"What the _fuck_ ," I hiss, gasping like I've just come up for air, which in a way I guess I have; I rip the headpiece off and press my hand to my forehead, trying in vain to locate and lessen the searing agony - but then I realise it's not there, it's just a memory of itself, fading in my skull, out of reach. "What the hell was that?"

I turn to Grantaire and he doesn't seem to be registering anything at all. "Huh?" He blinks at me and I can't do anything but stare back, still reeling a little. There's a faint throbbing behind my eyes.

After a moment, Grantaire shrugs and says, confused, "What the hell was what?"

"You... you feel like that all the time?"

"Like what?"

_Like you're on fire._

 

An interesting aspect of neurosharing that I studied a little at the academy is that your brain didn't actually differentiate between physical and psychological sensations - you feel them all as one in a sort of profound headache of someone else's life (or as it's called in scientific papers, a progressive sensation). Breaking your leg feels broadly the same as losing a beloved pet, etc. The only difference is localisation, but only in the immediate aftermath; eventually all pain ends up archived in the brain and becomes a big ball of _fuck no_.

Something else I discovered around the same time - although not in any class, as it's not something generally taught at a foundation level - is the idea of the fit. This is the physicality of how a person's mind _felt_ to wear, under the memories and thoughts, similar to the way bodies supposedly have auras. Everyone's mind is different, and this so is every fit. It's the closest to experiencing _being_ someone else that the human race can get, and I found it absolutely fascinating, going back to the library like clockwork every day for almost a month to dig out everything that'd been written on it, which wasn't much, considering.

The thing is though, I've never read anything about a sensational fit. Pain is meant to stay within the walls of the memories it came from. That's what makes this whole ordeal legal, ethical, _possible_.

 

"Are you okay?" Grantaire's asking me as his face swims into view again. I pass a hand over my face and swallow, and again, and then look at him.

Maybe it's just because it's our first drift. It's meant to hurt, they told us that.

But not like this. Not there.

"Are you?" I ask. "Are you... hurting? Right now?"

For a split second he becomes a rabbit in my headlights, and I see something flicker through his eyes, something exposed. I can't tell what he's thinking, which I thought was kind of the point of all this.

"I'm fine," he replies, and then he grins. He turns away and looks out of the glass over the smoking city.

Our now shared memory of his life dares me to find anything out of the ordinary that would show he wasn't telling the truth. As with every Catch 22, I can't.

 

Which is how I find out, I guess.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if it isnt clear (which is entirely possible) our boy taire is the first jaeger pilot with depression! woo!!


	11. me versus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To win at the game, you gotta be playing the game.
> 
> a/n r character vignette that could have been a diary entry :^/

I spent my whole life waiting for it the to happen. The big It. The big break, the One True Love, the acceptance letter. It took me one semester of college to realise it wasn’t gonna just happen. It wasn’t situational at all, or if it was then the situation was inside me and I couldn’t get away from it.

Even when what I thought was It happened, I was still me. I was still on the outskirts, nose against the glass, sitting in the dark corner with a bottle in my palm and fucking—rolling my eyes. I watched them, these most beautiful people, the world-changers I was forcing my company upon: I watched them dance, slow hands intertwined, teeth gleaming in the candlelight, skirts sweeping the dust, and then him.

I don’t really understand love. I don’t know if I’ve been in it before, or if I’m in it now. All I know is that every second I’m with him is bright, clear, and looking at him brings the horizon a little bit closer. It also scares the shit out of me, because he makes me want to drink til I black out, ah that classic boring stupid trope. What I like about him is that he wouldn’t look twice at someone like me. Everything about him is golden, so I can’t get in.

So I just watch, watch the world I’ve been fixated on for so long but never stopped to consider how I can never, in the state I’m in, be a part of it.


	12. die on my watch and i'll kill you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire is sick. :( 
> 
> a/n victor hugo died so i could write this

"No," Grantaire says. "Absolutely not. Go away."

  
"What, why?"

  
"It's bad enough you see me up close usually, but this is too much. Just let me wallow in my own filth in _peace_."

  
He can't see Enjolras, having smushed his face into his pillow for various self-preservation reasons, but he guesses he's probably doing that scrunched-foreheard thing that means he hasn't realised _he's_ being the unreasonable one.

  
"Oh my-" the guy says before he stops himself out of belated tact, which means he's probably located the light switch.

  
"Yeah, yeah, al _right_ ," Grantaire tries for indignation but ends with a well-timed sneeze. "Look- just go annoy Baz or whatever you came here to do."

  
"He's not here."

  
This is news to Grantaire; he deems it worth the effort to untangle his face from his duvet to make a face at Enjolras. "What d'ya mean not here."

  
Enjolras makes an equally confused face back. "I... don't know how better to phrase it."

  
"He was here just now! He made me soup."

  
"Yeah, and then he went."

  
"Where?" Grantaire asks, and is amazed by his own obtuseness when it hits him. "Ah- _oh_. Feu. Sexy reasons." His own words make his stomach roil; he's never felt less sexy in his life and he's chronically depressed! Colds are the stubbed toes of illness: like a bullet, but to your dignity.

  
Enjolras _hmm_ s in affirmation and takes this moment of distraction to rip open the curtains. Grantaire retreats back under the duvet and makes a solid plan to never come out again.

  
This, almost instantly, is trashed.

  
"Wait!" he squarks, voice muffled even to his own ears, and he re-emerges. "Are you babysitting me?"

  
Enjolras stops in his benevolent tracks of gently kicking a pile of clothes into a bigger pile of clothes in the corner. "Er. Perhaps?"

  
"I'm fine," he insists. He must be cursed, though, because it's punctuated by another sneeze. _Is this gonna happen everytime I lie, like Pinocchio?_

  
"Sure, Jan," Enjolras drawls, and Grantaire is astounded. Enjolras reddens a little under his stare.

  
"That's like years old, man," he manages, and then laughs, and then coughs, and can't stop still Enjolras gets him some water.


	13. death of apollo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you know how highly he regards you?"
> 
> a/n so i hope im not shooting myself in the foot here bc ive written and am planning to write about this before and again, its just so interesting to me, this dynamic they have going on :D anyway hope you enjoy!! im not sure if i achieved what i set out to do, but i did something lmao

"Seeing as R doesn't have a dad worth shit to do this, you got me instead."

  
"Do what, exactly?"

  
"I'm threatening to break your damn legs if you hurt him."

  
Honestly, Enjolras had been expecting this. It's within her character. She'd probably do this for Cosette too, adamant as she is that everyone deserves at least one person to offer to honourably murder for them. And R is a special case anyway; they've known each other longer than even Enjolras and Combeferre - at this point she'd probably break her own legs for him, and that's saying something.

  
What didn't occur to him until this second, however, is that even though this is all standard, it's... well, it's something bad... that Eponine thinks he's even capable of hurting him, because - no.

  
"I really won't," he replies. "I dunno if I can."

  
"You can," she disagrees; there's no venom in her voice, it's just fact recital. Her eyes are hard in that way that means she is actually looking for a positive outcome rather than a fight, which is reassuring but unnerving. No one is as minutely expressive as Eponine Thernardier. "The problem is the fact that you won't know."

  
Enjolras swallows. "I... don't understand."

  
Eponine's mouth tightens ever so slightly, and he thinks she probably hoped he'd get it but didn't expect it, not really.

  
"Do you know how highly he regards you?"

  
-

  
See, Enjolras _does_ know. He sees the way R looks at him during speeches, the wide-eyed falling grin that ends in his pencil stopping, just hovering above the page as he starts really _watching._ He knows what R calls him when he's talking to Courf. He sees, and it terrifies him. Grantaire believes in him so vehemently that he could tell him to- fucking jump off a bridge, and Grantaire _would_ because if Enjolras thinks it's a good idea, it must be. There's no distinction in his mind. He can do no wrong.

  
It's the worst thing in the world, really, but the trouble is that it comes in conjunction with the best thing. That first time on the steps, Grantaire kissed him, and between soft presses of his mouth he'd been murmuring, _Parfait, tellement parfait_ , and Enjolras could only manage half a second's thought for how he probably meant it more literally than he should.

  
He hasn't brought it up yet, because he's is also terrified of losing Grantaire, especially when everything's still so new. So there's the dilemma: keep Grantaire and live in this horrible... imbalance, or convince Grantaire he wasn't anywhere near godliness and lose his infatuation.

  
-

  
"Do you know how highly he regards you?"

  
"Yes. I know."

  
"So you know you can hurt him at any and all times, then."

  
"W-what?"

  
Ep flicks her gaze to the window for a moment, seeing something Enjolras can't.

  
"At risk of quoting that fucking John Green book, he's very willing to be hurt by you. He's in it for the long haul now. His reaction to anything you do is the same, so when you hurt him - without meaning to, I have no doubt there - you won't notice, he won't _seem_ hurt. You see?" Enjolras stares at her. "It's invisible."

  
-

  
He was late to their first real date. He'd been too engrossed in surpassing his word count to come up for air until Feuilly had come to take his cold tea away and asked casually what time he was leaving.

  
He'd shown up at half past with two odd socks and slightly unsteady because he hadn't had time for contacts and had left his glasses in the bathroom.

  
Grantaire was reading some chicklit thing from the bookswap shelf in the corner of the cafe, slumped in his seat and an askew mug in from of him.

  
"R, I'm so sorry-" Enjolras had rushed to get out, still panting a little from the brisk walk. "I had this thing, and my head was all everywhere, and I-"

  
And Grantaire had laughed and stolen his hat and kissed him on the cheek anyway. "No worries, you want something to eat?"

  
And Enjolras had been relieved, because he'd thought it was fine.

  
-

  
_Be better_ , he hisses at himself. Eponine, kindly, doesn't hiss anything.

  
-

  
Enjolras has been studying for six straight hours. He thinks he had some crackers at dinner time, but honestly he can't remember anything but the words on the page in front of him. It's that weird fuzzy grey stage of the early hours, and Grantaire appears beside him, squinting down at his book.

  
"You should sleep, babe," he says.

  
"So should you," he replies, and leans into his warmth for a moment.

  
Grantaire chuckles, his breath ruffling Enjolras' hair. "Got me there."

  
"Why're you awake anyway?"

  
"Couldn't sleep without you," Grantaire shrugs.

  
Something shifts in Enjorlas' mind. "I'm sorry, R," he says. He presses his palm to the hot skin of his forehead.

  
"Nah, my fault. I'm a hopeless romantic." He wraps his arms around Enjolras' neck and rests his head on top of his.

  
But the thing is, Enjolras knew he couldn't sleep without him. There's a bunch of factors that have to be just right so he can sleep - lighting, recent caffeine intake, how loud the nieghbours were being - and this is one of them, he'd found. And yet Enjolras does it anyway, because he forgets, and because his work is more important than anything.

  
Wait, no it's not. Not anymore.

  
He twists around to kiss Grantaire's neck, rather more forcefully than either of them anticipated. Grantaire smiles, amused, bashful, and Enjolras says, "I'll come now."

  
He saves his Word Doc, shuts his laptop lid and lets Grantaire lead him to bed, slipping out of his jeans on the way.

  
Five minutes later, Grantaire is alseep with his arms around Enjolras. Five minutes after that, Enjolras realises Grantaire is taking whatever he can get and expects absolutely nothing in return. Not really.

  
He's gotten away with this for far too long.

  
-

  
"I'm not perfect," he says, and it sounds ridiculous to his own ears because of course he fucking isn't, that much is obvious to everyone. Although apparently not.

  
Grantaire grins a little. "Oh, I know. You triple locked your flat yesterday trying to open the door."

  
Enjolras wants to take that, wants to laugh and move on to some other conversation, but if he doesn't do this now he's scared he never will.

  
He swallows, and Grantaire's brow furrowed at his expression. Before he can say anything, Enjolras says, "No, I mean. I'm not as good a person as you think I am."

  
"What do you mean?"

  
"I. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, because you... you seem to think I'm... well, you think very highly of me." Stolen words are easier. "And I don't know w-what to do-" and here's where it all breaks down; at the sound of his own voice cracking Enjolras just _crumples_. "-because that's why you want to be with me, and I'm not that great, not capital G, you just don't see my like that, and I don't know what to do about it because you'd leave if i wasn't who you thought I was. And I'm n-not."

  
"Babe, babe," Grantaire's saying, close and warm, hands on Enjolras' back. "What're you talking about?"

  
Enjolras leans away a little and rubs his eyes to hide the pinprick tears as he gathers all his courage and indulges in the last few seconds before he ruins his own life.

  
"I always put myself before others without meaning to; I focus on work so singularly that I forget everything else regardless of how important it is." _How important you are._ "I'm too idealistic for my own good, people have always told me that. I won't be satisfied until perfect is achieved which I doubt will happen in my lifetime if we're talking about the grand scale, I _know_ that. Some people say my aims are almost childish in their simplicity and logic, and it's true, plus the way I won't let go of them. I can't ever stop, these things will never go away or go completely right. I'm naïve sometimes. I'm uncompromising. I'm too black and white. Everything has to- go to plan otherwise I'm no use." _And these are just the revolutionary things._ "And. And I either trust someone entirely or not at all. I can drop things and people and sometimes I even don't realise, which might be worse. I'm too much, all the damn time, and I don't know how to not be too much. Combeferre's the only reason I have any friends at all. I don't tell people I'm grateful for things they do, and I think I come across as cold a lot of the time because it just doesn't occur to me-"

"Enjolras-"

"And it's been a month since I realised I love you and I haven't told you yet, and I don't want that to overshadow the rest of this because it's all true and it's all shit and I'm sorry and I get that you'll want to take a break, I really do get it, I'm not just saying that."

His sentence ends more abruptly than he'd expected and he almost trips over it. He realises he needs to breathe deep for a moment so he doesn't pass out. He doesn't make eye contant with Grantaire until he speaks.

"Fucking hell, Enj," he says, sort of softly, sort of not. "That's... a lot."

"That's my point."

Grantaire makes a face at him, his _Smartass_ face that's so familiar it's like for a second nothing's changed at all.

Enjolras glances towards the bar, wondering if this would be an opportune moment to get another drink to give Grantaire time, space and the chance to just leave if he wants.

Grantaire shuts that thought down like a slap. "Have you heard of cognitive distortions?"

"...No?"

"It's a term in CBT - you know, therapy. It's habitual thought patterns."

"...Right?" _What's this got to do with breaking up with me?_

"Well, you seem to have a pretty bad case of mind-reading, pal."

"Like tele-?"

"Not that kind - it means assuming how other people think, what they're thinking. But on such an almost subconcious level that you don't realise you're even doing it: you just think it's the truth."

_Oh, that's terrifying. The truth can be a lie?_

Enjolras doesn't know how to respond to that.

Grantaire looks at him for a few moments, intensely, and Enjolras feels like he's been stripped naked. In a way, he'd just done that to himself.

And then he sighs, and runs a hand through his stupid, lovely hair, and fidgets around in his seat until settling for leaning forward. Enjolras forces himself not to move away from him.

"Look," he says, and pauses, which makes Enjolras momentarily want to die because if he keeps doing that he's gonna die anyway, may as well go less painfully, but then: "that really was a lot. We gotta talk about it, all of it, and I think you'd even do well if you talked to like, a real therapist about it, but for now I think the most important thing you gotta hear is- this is- it's breaking my heart, Enj."

He'd known that was coming, but he'd thought knowing would make it less awful to hear.

"It breaks my fucking heart to hear you talk about yourself like that, because it's not true."

"It is true! My entire point was that you don't believe me, R!"

"Christ, just _listen_ to me!" Grantaire yells, and the other patrons in the bar turn to look at them in astonishment but he doesn't seem to notice. He's sat right on the edge of his seat, practically vibrating, and his eyes are shiny and hard like the first time Enjolras met him, the first version of him he knew. He doesn't see the other customers frowning but his voice turns to a scratchy hiss of a thing: " _Listen._ The part that's not true is the way you fucking think we all work! If you want to believe in a flaw in yourself, it's that you have no fucking respect for the rest of us if you think we'd think badly of you for being a person! Yeah, you're not perfect, you never got the chance to be, being born human. And I of all people know you, I do; I may have thought you were perfect a year ago but then I got to know you for real, and you know Joly always thought it was so funny how there was an exact correlation between my opinion of you going down and my affection of you going up. And all that time watching you going about your frustrating business, never did I once think you'd stoop so low as to think I'd break up with you for being normal!"

Enjolras feels tears sting the corners of his eyes; Grantaire blinks himself out of his thing, shakes his head like he's clearing it, and leans forward barely a second after finishing his sentence:

"And it's _not your fault_."

Enjolras covers his eyes with his hands and bursts out crying in the quiet way one does in public places like school bathrooms or the hallway of your parents' house.

He leaves the planet for a minute.

Then there's a hand on his arm, sudden warmth up close; the world feels like it's collapsing in on itself like a dying star, but with the added layer of humiliation in having your breakdown seen.

Grantaire's ragged breath is clear in his ear, which clicks into place the warmth, the body he's enveloped in, being held together by. He whispers, " _Shit. I just quoted Good Will Hunting at you, didn't I?"_

The laugh starts way down in Enjolras' stomach, startling him when it reaches his throat, and quite without meaning to he's giggling into Grantaire's side rather hysterically, still all wet and pathetic and hiding behind his own arms but it doesn't matter, because Grantaire's laughing too.

" _I hope you know I love you too,_ " he says, hugging Enjolras tighter to him. " _But more importantly I hope you know I love you because I know you, not because I don't_."

That pretty much sets Enjolras off crying again, but he doesn't pay it any mind at all this time.


End file.
